How Did Japan Become So Good at Football

In a short time, Japan has quickly become one of the best national teams outside of Europe and South America and could very well be the first nation outside the two continents to win a World Cup. After all, in recent times, Japan has been challenging against some of the best footballing nations in the world and has beaten some on multiple occasions. But how did Japan go for being one of the best upcoming nations in the sport when less than 30 years ago, they never even qualified for a World Cup before? Well, let's take a look at the reasons why Japan has become so good at football. One of the main reasons why Japan is becoming a football powerhouse is thanks to the J-League. You see, before the creation of Japan's own football league, the country lacked the consistency and infrastructure to compete at the highest level in the sport. Before the J-League was created in the early 90s, Japan had an amateur league called the JSL or also known as the Japan Soccer League, which consisted of clubs that represented Japanese corporations like Mazda, Toyota, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, Honda, etc. And they were acting as separate clubs within the league. Not only that, the footballers who represented their companies on the pitch weren't paid for playing either. They were just your day-to-day employees. Initially though, the JSL was helping Japan somewhat on an international level, like when Japan beat Argentina 3-2 in the 1964 Olympics and even ended up winning the bronze Olympic medal at the 1968 Olympics after beating the likes of France and Mexico on the way. But a decade later in the 1980s, the Japan Soccer League was slowly fading away into irrelevancy with Japanese fans slowly starting to not attend the games and also being mixed in with the poor product on the pitch, the JSL started to become no more and a change was necessary. The Japan Football Association, more commonly known as the JFA, saw this and realized that in order to raise the level of play domestically, to attempt to gain more football fans and strengthen the national team, the football infrastructure within the country needed a massive change. Hence, after Japanese football investors traveled to Europe to find the best possible model for football, in which they found the Germans' Bundesliga as the best one, which kinda makes sense considering that Germany is the home of many Japanese footballers nowadays, but anyways with that, the JFA formed the J-League in 1992, with the first official season happening in 1993. It's no secret that after the J-League was officially announced, Japan won their first Asian Cup after beating Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the final, and even qualified for their first World Cup in 1998, where yes, they did lose every game at the tournament, but still, at least Japan qualified for their first World Cup ever. Not only that, Japan co-hosting the 2002 World Cup not only played a part in the boost of football's popularity in the country, but also the popularity of the J-League. But how exactly did the J-League transform football in the country? Well initially, the J-League had the idea of signing superstars to help attract fans to watch games live in the stadiums. The J-League as a whole had players such as Ramon Diaz, an ex-Inter Milan, Monaco, and Argentina striker, who later bagged 28 goals in the season, for the Yokohama Marinos, Gary Lineker, the famous English footballer who played for the likes of Everton, Leicester, a former Red Star and Marseille midfielder of ex-country Yugoslavia, Arsene Wenger, who joined the J-League a few years later before managing the Arsenal Invincibles, and of course, the Brazil legend himself, Zico, one of the greatest footballers of all time, came out of retirement to play in the J-League, and he eventually helped the Kashima Antlers finish runners-up in the inaugural season of the league, and also helped the Antlers win the J-League Sun Story Series. Now, Kashima Antlers is one of the most successful clubs in Japan, with them winning the J-League eight times, the Emperor's Cup five times, and the AFC Champions League once, and it's all thanks to Zico for not only giving the club their initial push, but now also being the club's current technical director. Anyways, with this initial push of superstars in the J-League, Japan's first professional league was seeing a ton of success, but a few years down the line, the league attendance had declined rapidly, with a huge reason being the economic slump of Japan, which affected a ton of clubs and pockets of the fans, with attendance slicing by half. Throughout the economic crisis that Japan was facing, the J-League had to let go of some of the superstars they had, and the Japan Football Association realized that they had to stop relying on big names to help grow the league, and instead focus on trying to develop talented Japanese players on their own. Then in 1999, the J-League announced their 100-year vision, in which they aimed to win a World Cup by 2092 and make 100 professional football clubs in Japan, in which they're already well on their way in doing so, since Japan has created more than 60-plus clubs, and the Japanese league management encouraged clubs to promote football-based activities, to acquire local sponsorships, and build good relationships with their hometowns at the grassroots level. This basically means that J-League clubs need to start relying on local fans for help in terms of financially, rather than national sponsors, and hope that Japan can develop superstars of their own, instead of relying on other countries. Also, the J-League created their official two-division system, with the J-League Division 1, aka J1, containing 16 clubs, and the J-League Division 2, aka J2, launching with 10 clubs in 1999. Later down the line, a third division, the J3, was also created as well. Now with the J-League being more than 30 years strong, and being more successful than ever, with Japanese clubs reigning supreme in Asia, like Uruwara Red Diamonds for example, winning three AFC Champions Leagues, we can see that so far, that the JFA's plan for the league has been working, even though they still kind of are attracting big names in the league, like Fernando Torres, David Villa, Podolsky, Iniesta, Hulk, Diego Forlan, etc, but overall, Japan has incredibly improved their grassroots program, and has developed players capable of playing at the highest levels of Europe. And that brings me to my next point. In football today, it's more common now to see top Japanese footballers playing over in Europe than in the J-League, and this has definitely benefited the growth of football for Japan as a whole, the fans, and most importantly, the national team. After all, one of J-League's main priorities is to export as many Japanese players as possible to Europe, because that would obviously benefit the national team. Now if you want to see the improvement, just look at Japan's first World Cup appearance in 1998. Every single Japanese player in that squad played their football within the country. But now, if you look at the 2022 World Cup, which is around 24 years later, only 7 out of the 26 footballers play in the J-League, with the rest now being in Europe, especially the Bundesliga. And with this eagerness of Japanese players wanting to play at the highest level, is the reason why there's such a big gap between them and the other national teams in Asia as a whole. That also explains why they're the highest ranked national team in the continent right now too. But just being in Europe isn't good enough for players coming from the outside. Like there's no point of a Japanese player coming to Europe just to sit on the bench. You're better off staying in the J-League getting more minutes. But that's the difference between Japanese players compared to the players from other countries. Some of these Japanese players are stars for their clubs. But real quick before we get on with that though, please remember to subscribe to the channel. We're close to 100,000 subscribers and I would just really appreciate it. So thank you. And also if you guys can, follow my Twitter and my Instagram, both at Nebuto, if you just want to hear my thoughts on football games, transfers, and overall, just to get to know me more. So if you want to, feel free to hit me up with that follow. Thank you. Back to topic, running through some of the modern day examples, Daji Kamada was an undroppable starter for Eintracht Frankfurt and played a huge role in them winning the Europa League a couple years ago. And now, even though he hasn't been the best for Lazio, the fact that he's playing for a club of that caliber says a lot. Kaori Mitoma, the winger for Brian Hovhannabian, only started to play professional football at 23 years old. And that was because he was studying at university, which is where he wrote that paper on the art of dribbling. However, after signing for Brian for only around 3 million pounds from Kawasaki Fronteo, Mitoma is proving to be a steal for the English club. And now has definitely named himself as one of the sauciest wingers in the Premier League. Sticking to the Prem, Wataru Endo has been an undroppable midfielder for Liverpool, who have been battling relentlessly for their Premier League title in Jurgen Klopp's last season. Endo has been their rock and has shown that Japanese players can play a pivotal role in some of Europe's best sides. Takumi Minamino was an absolute superstar for RB Salzburg, playing over 200 games for the club. And this eventually earned him a move to Liverpool, where he scored a good amount of goals and earned important achievements. But now with Monaco, he has become an essential piece for the French side. Takefusa Kubo, who is Japan's best upcoming player, was developed a little bit with the famous La Masia academy, and now with Real Sociedad, after playing for Real Madrid, Kubo is one of Sociedad's best players currently. Not only that, I haven't even mentioned some of other Japan's good players, like Tomiyasu who plays for Arsenal, Takuma Asano who plays for Bochum, Tanaka who plays for Fortuna Dusseldorf, Kiyogo who plays for Celtic, Ritsu Doan who plays for Freiburg, Junya Ito who plays for Rhymes, etc. Japanese players, who have all played in the J League previously, are now playing key roles for the European clubs. More than ever before in history. Even if we look back at the past and some of the Japanese players who paved the way, the talent definitely seemed to be there for the previous generation. For example, Shinji Kagawa could be described as a cult hero or legend for the likes of Barisha Dorman in Manchester United. Then, Keisuke Honda is one of Japan's most famous players ever, with him being a dead ball specialist and also playing for the likes of CSK Moscow and AC Milan. And even one of Japan's best players ever, Hidetoshi Nakata, a Ballon d'Or nominee and a 2-time Asian Player of the Year award winner who played for the likes of Roma, Parma, Fiorentina, Bolton Wanderers, and Japan at the World Cup 3 separate times, played a huge role in Europe and this benefited the national team of Japan when it came time to represent them. So throughout history and in modern day, with Japanese players' price tag being relatively cheaper and more trustworthy, it's only a matter of time before we see more Japanese players paving their own way in Europe. More than they are right now, especially considering the fact that the J League scooped the academy director of West Ham, Terry Wesley, and appointed him as the league's technical director to help with the exporting of Japanese players to Europe. And also that in 2016, the J League constructed the DNA plan, which stands for Developing Natural Abilities, and this plan is aimed to maximize the potential of Japanese players while also providing the best opportunities for them and overall, just nurturing the talent the country has right now. But since we spoke about Hidetoshi Nakata a little previously, let's move on to the next topic on why many Japan's athletes picked football as a sport that they decided to take up professionally. Now as strange as it sounds, one of the biggest reasons why football started booming in Japan and why a majority of their footballers got into the sport is because of anime and manga, specifically because of a manga created by Yoichi Takahashi in 1981, Captain Tsubasa. You see, Captain Tsubasa is an anime slash manga that follows the story of Tsubasa Uzora, a Japanese student who is deeply in love with football and dreams of one day winning the World Cup for Japan. The story's premise is simple, but this sort of story helped encapsulate millions of Japanese people into the sport, boosting his popularity. In fact, despite being decades old, in 2023, Captain Tsubasa has reached 90 million copies in circulation worldwide, which just shows how popular the manga has become. And in Japanese football, the influence of Captain Tsubasa is pretty much unmatched. In fact, the reason why this relates back to Hidetoshi Nakata, one of the most notable names in Japanese football history, is because Captain Tsubasa was the main motivation for Nakata to get into football and play it professionally. And without this manga series influencing him, he might have never played the sport in general. After all, football was behind more popular sports in the country, like sumo wrestling, the national sport, and baseball, which is arguably the most popular sport in Japan today. Captain Tsubasa didn't only help the Japanese audience though, but superstars across football worldwide have co-signed Captain Tsubasa as a big influence on them, like Del Piero, Fernando Torres, Andres Iniesta, and Zinedine Zidane, all signing Captain Tsubasa as a series that they used to follow. Now that I've got the point across that Captain Tsubasa helped the older generation fall in love with football, the new generation of Japanese fans and players are now being influenced by another anime slash manga, and that's Blue Lock, which is boosting the sport's popularity in Japan even more. If we look at the numbers of the top selling mangas in 2023, Blue Lock tops the list with more than 10 million sales, which is more than the likes of mega popular Jujutsu Kaisen, One Piece, Chainsaw Man, My Hero Academia, etc. And 2023 wasn't even the peak of Blue Lock's popularity in my opinion, because I'm sure we all remember how much that Blue Lock was popping during the 2022 World Cup when Japan was on fire. Something that I'll touch on soon. I mean, y'all definitely remember this sound, right? Not only that, Japan's national team even collaborated with Blue Lock, capitalizing on its popularity. So as you can see, with Captain Tsubasa inspiring the older generation primarily, and Blue Lock influencing the newer Japanese generation into football, Japan's rise in this sport will only continue to blossom, and a huge reason for that is thanks to anime and manga. But now, let's talk about another main reason why Japan's football popularity has been skyrocketing, the World Cup. For me personally and many other football fans out there, one of the main reasons how we all fell in love with this sport is because of the World Cup. This competition is the pinnacle of the sport, and every fan or player has dreamt of playing in it. I remember being a young lad and dreaming that one day, I could represent the United States at a World Cup and score a last minute winner like Donovan did in 2010 or score quickly like Dempsey did in 2014. So with the World Cup being a primary factor for people to get into the sport, the same has to be said for the Japanese people, as Japan's recent successes at the World Cup definitely plays a pivotal factor in the sport's growing popularity in the Asian country. Let's first look back at the 2002 World Cup, a tournament Japan co-hosted alongside South Korea. This was only Japan's second ever World Cup, but they needed to perform well in order to attract the millions of fans following the game for the first time, and they did just that and made history. In fact, Japan managed to top a pretty tough group, with them drawing to Belgium 2-2 in the opening game, beating Russia 1-0, their first ever win in the World Cup, and then beating Tunisia 2-0 to top their group at the tournament. However, despite being knocked out by Turkey 1-0 in the round of 16, it's safe to say that Japan made their nation proud, and they would do the exact same thing at the 2010 World Cup, where Keisuke Honda would establish himself as one of Japan's rising superstars. In the first game too, Keisuke Honda put Japan on his back and helped defeat Cameroon 1-0. Then, despite losing 1-0 to the Netherlands in the next game, a later finalist at the competition, Honda's iconic free kick helped defeat Denmark 3-1, and this sent Japan through to the round of 16. Sadly, their hearts were broken in the round of 16 after losing a penalty shootout, but the fact that Japan made it through this far unexpectedly was something that the Japanese could be proud of. Japan would later do something similar in 2018, where they would beat the South American heavy favorites Colombia 2-1 in the opening match, draw against the African giants Senegal in the second match, and then somehow lose to Poland 1-0 in the last match. But thanks to Japan receiving less yellow cards than Senegal, they were the ones going through in the round of 16 as 2nd place in the group. Then against Belgium in the round of 16 is when things look the most promising for Japan, with the Asian country being up 2-0 by the 53rd minute. Sadly, even though it looked highly likely that Japan were about to pull off the ultimate upset, Belgium came back, and in the very last minute, Cagli broke Japanese hearts as the Europeans completed a second half comeback and won 3-2. This broke Japanese fans' hearts, but yet again, the people of Japan were extremely proud of their national team for putting up an extraordinary fight. Now moving on, the 2022 World Cup was the best one for Japan in my opinion, and this is where the Asian countries start to receive a lot of attention from my perspective. Initially though, before the World Cup started, a lot of football fans wrote off Japan, since they were in a tough group containing the likes of Spain, Germany, and Costa Rica. I can't blame football fans for thinking this though. It didn't look that good for Japan at the start, especially since they had to play the frightening Germany in their opening match, and Japan even went down 1-0 in the 33rd minute thanks to a Gunawan penalty. And from here on, it seemed like the game was done and dusted. I mean come on, look at how Rudiger takes the piss here. You wouldn't do that unless you were confident that your country was going to win. But karma caught up to Rudiger and the German national team, because just like the protagonists in anime, Japan never gave up. Hajime Moriyasu, the Japan manager, must have given an Erwin-style halftime talk in that game. Laying to the game in the 75th minute, supersub Minamino comes on and takes a shot at Neuer, which he parries away. However, Ritsu Doan, the Freiburg winger, and also the guy who kinda resembles Kunigami from Blue Lock due to the same hair color, guts on the rebound and scores a goal to tie up the game for the Japanese. Then in the 83rd minute, Japanese forward Takuma Asano perfectly brought down the ball from a pass and then ended up finishing the playoff beautifully, giving Japan a late lead from 1-0 down to 2-1 up in the short span of 8 minutes. This anime MC Protagonist-esque performance got Japan one of their biggest upsets at the World Cup and also a crucial 3 points in the 2022 edition. Then in the 3rd match of the group stages against the 2010 World Cup champion Spain, Japan needed to win if they wanted any chance of going through. And it didn't start off hot for Japan either, with Alvaro Murata getting an early goal to give the Spaniards a 1-0 lead. And this lead stayed all the way up until halftime. But Japan's manager, Moriyasu, definitely whipped out another Erwin-style halftime talk. And in the 48th minute, Ritsu Doan again scores a banger from outside the box to equalize the game for Japan. But a draw didn't last long, because in the 51st minute, Mitoma barely saved the ball from going out. On some real anime clutch moment timing, a man should cross it back into the box with Aotanaka hitting it in to give Japan a 2-1 lead and eventually all 3 points against Spain. And this helped Japan top a very difficult group containing the likes of Germany and Spain of course. Sadly though, Japan's run ended in the round of 16 once again, with them losing a precious 1-0 lead against Croatia and eventually losing on penalties once again to knock themselves out. But Japanese fans, and football fans in general to be honest, saw that effort and improvement from Japan's national team. And now, a lot of us believe that Japan had the capability of pulling something special off in a future World Cup, especially because there had to be so many Japanese people watching the World Cup for the first time. And after seeing the upsets that Japan caused at the tournament, they're now definitely in love with football and are now a part of Japan's new football culture. But what do I think is preventing Japan from making that next step and truly establishing themselves as the next football powerhouse? Well here's why. Now it's no secret that Japan have made tremendous steps forward regarding their football league and national team. And they're definitely making all the right steps and progressing as a footballing nation. But what's preventing Japan from truly establishing themselves as one of football's elites? There's a couple reasons, but the first one that I want to mention is that Japan suck at being favorites, but they love being the underdogs. We can look at some of the previous examples that I mentioned. In the game against Belgium, where Japan were the heavy favorites to go through after going up 2-0 in the second half, they managed to choke and lose 3-2 at the end of the day. Then in the 2022 World Cup, when Japan were the heavy underdogs against Germany and Spain, they won. But when they were the heavy favorites against Costa Rica, who easily got spanked by Spain's 7-0 in the opening match, they lost 1-0. Then when people started saying that Japan were favorites against Croatia and could go through, they managed to botch up the penalty shootout and missed three penalties to go out of the tournament in heartbreaking fashion. We don't even need to just look at World Cups though. We can also look at the recent Asian Cups as well. Despite being Asian Cup champions four times, becoming the most successful team in the competition, Japan hasn't won the tournament since 2011. In fact, at the 2019 Asian Cup, Japan beat the opponents that could have caused the most problems for them, Iran, in the semifinals 3-0. However, even though it looked very likely that Japan would beat Qatar in the final, a country who has never won the Asian Cup at the time, Japan choked and lost 3-1 in the final. Then in the recent 2023 Asian Cup, where Japan were slated as heavy favorites to win the tournament before it even started, Japan were shaky throughout the entire Asian Cup, even losing to Iraq in the group stages unexpectedly 2-1. Then in the quarterfinals, despite being favorites against Iran and going up 1-0, they choked again and lost to Iran 2-1. So just from this, we can see that Japan lack the mentality of taking care of their opponents when they're the favorites. But they have no problem in doing that when they're the underdogs. Japan just has to make sure that they still have that winning mindset and not crumble under the pressure when people are expecting something from them. And when Japan has that locked down, they can do wonders. Another component that Japan needs to figure out is filling in their missing pieces. A couple of them include finding good fullbacks to help the national team. Tomiyasu is one of them, but besides that, there really isn't another great one. Also, Japan desperately need a number 9, someone who's a killer in front of goal. The fact that Japan has always kind of had a gaping hole at the 9 is why the anime and manga Blue Lock was even created, so I'm not the only one who sees this as a problem. Also, Hajime Moriyasu, the manager, is a pretty decent one, but he really needs to step up his game if he wants to take Japan over the line at future Asian Cups and World Cups. Overall though, if I had to name a country that will win a World Cup first outside of Europe and South America, I would say that Japan has the likeliest chance, considering the fact that the progress they've made in around 30 years has been nothing short of spectacular, and I don't see Japan's progress slowing down anytime soon. But Japan definitely has some things that they need to fix and tweak in order for them to go from being good at football to being great at football. Anyways guys, if you enjoyed this video, please remember to subscribe to the channel, I'd really appreciate it. Also, please be sure to follow my Twitter and my Instagram. The links are in my YouTube description. And last but not least, if you want to learn more about Kevin De Bruyne's career and how he got to this point, you definitely want to check out this video right here. You won't regret it.